How does one eat a Thanksgiving meal? On its face this might seem like a ridiculous question, and also everywhere else too. I mean, who doesn't know how to eat? (Excepting the British, of course.) Thanksgiving is marked, more than anything else, by its abundance of tasty foodstuffs; practically speaking, it is a…»11/27/14 2:30pm 11/27/14 2:30pm

The question is: Why make fried calamari for yourself, when you can get it at virtually any restaurant in the Western world, from the swankest of haute cuisine food temples to the Guy Fieri-est Ameridude chain crapholes, and it's no worse than pretty decent in all of them? »8/23/14 4:51pm 8/23/14 4:51pm

A truth of the modern workplace is that you do a lot of tedious bullshit—meetings and reports and conference calls, spreadsheets and data entry and friggin' change-controls, office politicking and ass-kissing and -covering, long hours and long commutes and long/haggard/grey faces and exhaustion—for the production of… »6/01/14 12:42am 6/01/14 12:42am

Generally speaking, we like shrimp. Your local supermarket testifies to this: Multiple sizes of shrimp of various provenance on display at the seafood counter; shrimp prepared and flash-frozen in wild variety (OK, maybe not wild variety, but anyway Captain Gorton breads them at least a couple of different ways) over… »5/10/14 3:21pm 5/10/14 3:21pm

The problem with condiments is that even if they're theoretically intended to enhance or complement the flavors of a given dish, too often they just swamp those other flavors instead. Take, for example, ketchup, the iconic condiment: It doesn't taste bad (and anyone who tells you it does is more interested in… »5/03/14 1:17pm 5/03/14 1:17pm

Hell no, I don't need to persuade you to make fish tacos. Pfft. No way. It's spring; the sun is shining in a blue sky; birds were singing outside your open window when you awoke this morning, because you left your window open overnight, because that is what you do in springtime, because you are not Gargamel, and in… »4/26/14 2:41pm 4/26/14 2:41pm

We are Americans (no, not you, Canadians) (OK, you too, c'mon over here ya big galoots), and we like big hunks of steak*. To be precise, we like our own big hunks of steak: We like to saunter into Bob's House of Steak all bowlegged and gimlet-eyed like John Wayne and order for ourselves some great obscene wad of… »4/12/14 4:03pm 4/12/14 4:03pm

Sausage gravy is deeply, deeply disreputable food. In its typical presentation, slopped across biscuits in some charmingly run-down roadside diner with Patsy Cline playing on the jukebox, it is, in essence, flour on flour, dressed up as actual sustenance by the inclusion of token quantities of butter and pork—which,… »3/22/14 10:44am 3/22/14 10:44am

Groundhog meteorologists notwithstanding, seasons are shapeless, poorly defined things. To wit: Traditionally, in North America, the "winter" season is regarded as beginning at some point in the back half of December (the solstice) and extending into the back half of the following March (the equinox)—and yet,… »3/15/14 3:28pm 3/15/14 3:28pm

So the Super Bowl is tomorrow, and just as Super Bowl viewership is essentially non-optional for Americans who do not wish to be regarded with open suspicion by their acquaintances and coworkers, the provision of chicken wings is essentially non-optional for Super Bowl party hosts who do not wish to be shunned by all… »2/01/14 5:10pm 2/01/14 5:10pm

These are dark times, friends. Literally! It's dark as hell all the time, because it is winter, and everything is polar vortices and bitter bullying winds and frostbite and uncontrollable sobbing and making a fort out of couch cushions and hiding inside the fort shrouded in sweaters and jackets and layers upon… »1/19/14 10:43am 1/19/14 10:43am

No one has moderate feelings toward the raw oyster (except perhaps for the terminally indifferent, may they ride the Meh Bus straight to hell): Either you ohmigod love love loooooove them, or you think they are gross little brine-loogies and have bad taste in things. »12/28/13 2:06pm 12/28/13 2:06pm

By now you're likely well aware that the word ragù—although perhaps most frequently encountered with its accent symbol flipped over, emblazoned across ten thousand jars of tomato products in your local supermarket—has its own non-commercial definition, other than "bad-tasting Italian-themed ketchup." »12/21/13 4:19pm 12/21/13 4:19pm

Insofar as your entire life, to this point, can be understood as a series of undertakings begun in earnest, gradually disintegrated by pressure and time, and then finally destroyed with sudden, spasmodic violence, you—exactly you, you there, reading this now—are the perfect person to make and bring the mashed… »11/23/13 2:27pm 11/23/13 2:27pm

The basic idea is that breakfast is supposed to supply your wretched, dead-eyed carcass with enough chemical energy to work itself up into a state vaguely similar to the authentic vitality of the functional, well-adjusted people edging away from you in half-concealed disgust on the bus. This is why we are instructed… »11/10/13 10:51am 11/10/13 10:51am

The first thing to do is clear up any misconceptions that the reason to make mashed cauliflower, and not mashed potatoes, is that mashed cauliflower is the more calorically or nutritionally upstanding choice. If that is what you are thinking, stop thinking that, because that is stupid. You're stupid. »10/12/13 2:21pm 10/12/13 2:21pm

Time was, as summer rounded into autumn, you kept an eye out for that first cool, dry weekend after the leaves started to turn, when the air remained genuinely chilly in the shade all day long, and then you tilted back your floppy coppola hat, hooked your thumbs into your suspenders, gazed thoughtfully into the… »10/06/13 12:45pm 10/06/13 12:45pm